News

From a little known niche just a few years ago, floating solar has quickly grown to more than 1 GW of installed capacity worldwide, and a source of great hope for the industry’s future, particularly in countries where space for solar is at a premium. pv magazine spoke with experts from leading floating PV test centers in Singapore and the Netherlands to outline the challenges still faced by floating PV as the technology moves towards major growth.

The South Australian state government has launched a $50 million fund to support construction of new energy storage projects, seeking to address intermittency in the state electricity system and make electricity more affordable and reliable. There will be one round of applications, with a closing date of Thursday, 7 February 2019.

Iron ore giant Fortescue Metals Group will invest $20 million into hydrogen research at Australian national science agency CSIRO’s Brisbane laboratories. The partnership aims to develop new technologies, create jobs, and capitalise on the economic opportunities associated with hydrogen.

The 10 MW Northam Solar Farm has begun feeding electricity into the grid. According to Carnegie Clean Energy, full commercial operations is expected in the coming weeks once the required tests are completed successfully.

After it entered the second trading halt in a matter of months a week ago, Perth-based engineering company RCR Tomlinson has failed to secure additional funding and went into administration. Earlier this year, the company managed to raise $100 million in capital from its shareholders, after which it took huge write-downs on two Queensland solar farm.

A University of Michigan team hopes to offer a 15% efficient solar window product, which allows 50% of the light through. It has received US$1.3 million from the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office to develop the idea further.

The French government has devised three possible scenarios for the planned phasing out of part of its nuclear power generation assets. Even under the most optimistic scenario, the target to reduce the share of nuclear power from around 75% to 50% by 2025, which had been set by the previous government, will only be reached in 2035. The most pessimistic scenario envisages the construction of four new nuclear reactors by 2040.

Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten unveiled the party’s ‘all of the above’ plan for Australia’s energy sector, which it will take to the 2019 election. A ramped-up NEG, project auctions under a CfD structure, grid infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and a boost to battery storage all feature and were welcomed by the clean energy sector.

The Canadian battery manufacturer has been approved as the third battery storage provider for the South Australian Home Battery Scheme. Eguana plans to set up a manufacturing facility in Adelaide, creating up to 200 new jobs over the next three years.

With the Australian solar market booming across all three market segments, the first pv magazine Quality Roundtable at All Energy Australia discussed how time constraints for installers is threatening quality in the rooftop sectors. And for the utility scale, a more sophisticated approach to modelling project output can hasten grid connection and AEMO acceptance.